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…began to undergo an economic revolution. It started in the north, where a new dry phase in the Earth’s history forced people to make better use of a more limited part of their environment as the desert spread southward once more. Hunters who had roamed the savanna settled beside the…

Little evidence survives of Neolithic religion and ritual, but societies surely would have had priests to mediate between the gods and the mortals and to assist with the search for security in an age when the natural forces of fire or flood, plague or famine, were subject only to…

…often characterized as the “Neolithic Revolution” was in progress in China by at least the 6th millennium bce. Developments during the Chinese Neolithic Period (New Stone Age) were to establish some of the major cultural dimensions of the subsequent Bronze Age.

…is somewhat misleadingly called the Neolithic revolution, implying that new stone tools were at the root of this vast change. It is now generally accepted that the new technology was not the principal factor. Nevertheless what took place was undoubtedly a revolution. Mobile bands became settled village communities. The development…

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